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Lev Tahor left unpaid bills in Quebec

Despite receiving millions of dollars in charity over more than a decade, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group Lev Tahor left behind a legacy of bounced cheques, abandoned bills and unpaid taxes when it fled Quebec for refuge in Ontario last month.

A member of the Lev Tahor community on his way to morning prayers in Chatham-Kent, Ont., in November. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star file photo)

SAINT-JÉRÔME,QUE.—Despite receiving millions of dollars in charity over more than a decade, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group targeted by a child-welfare probe left behind a legacy of bounced cheques, abandoned bills and unpaid taxes when it fled Quebec for refuge in Ontario last month.

A Toronto Star investigation of Lev Tahor has turned up seven lawsuits filed in Saint-Jérôme, Que., in which the reclusive group is accused of leaving thousands of dollars worth of bills unpaid for such things as legal fees, work performed at its former compound in nearby Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, and school board taxes.

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The group’s most frequent opponents in court have been the local school boards, which in Quebec are responsible for collecting their own taxes from property owners. In three of those cases, a judge has ordered the group to pay. A fourth is still before the courts.

Operating under the corporate and charitable guises of Congregation Riminov and the Society of Spiritual Development, Lev Tahor runs its own religious education system and has stated that its objections to the teaching of evolution and sex ed in the provincial curriculum are the main reasons for their move to Ontario.

The most recent case involving a school board, which was completed in mid-August, involved nearly $2,000 in unpaid school taxes going back to 2010. Another case, resolved in September 2012, ordered the Society of Spiritual Development, to pay more than $2,400 for two years of unpaid school taxes.

In all cases, Lev Tahor’s leaders did not present a statement of defence indicating why they refused to pay the school taxes. Neither did representatives of the group or its lawyers appear in court when the judgments were handed down.

Another lawsuit against the group originated when a senior Lev Tahor member, Mayer Rosner, contracted a company in 2009 to install an air-exchange system in a building, according to the statement of claim in that case. The final bill was $5,089.53 and Rosner provided three post-dated cheques, the court files show. Two of the cheques bounced when they were deposited at the bank, as did one of the replacement cheques. Months later, Lev Tahor handed over $4,100 toward the bill, but skipped out on the remaining $1,000, which a judge ordered Rosner to pay.

“Many times Mr. Rosner has told us that we would be able to obtain final payment in order to push back the due date again and again,” the company said in its statement of claim.

In an interview with the Star, Nachman Helbrans, the son of Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, refuted the image that Lev Tahor was a community of religious laggards, saying that they are simply struggling to survive financially after a series of bad breaks and still-born business ventures that have made it difficult to support their large families.

Whatever money the 40 Lev Tahor families are able to accumulate often goes to helping out other members who have unsettled immigration cases in Canada, including refugee claims, Nachman Helbrans said. Until those cases are settled, Helbrans added, some families cannot legally work or obtain health insurance.

“I know that sometimes we are having a big financial burden,” Nachman Helbrans said. He added that he once paid $3,000 in hospital bills for his undocumented sister-in-law.

Financial filings show Lev Tahor has registered two charities during their time in Canada — with millions of dollars flowing through their accounts.

Congregation Riminov, which was registered as a tax-exempt religious charity in 2001, showed great success raising money, according to government filings. Up until 2007, when its status was revoked for not filing mandatory papers with the federal government, it was bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, claimed assets of more than $5.6 million in 2006 and received a $1.9-million donation in 2005 intended to fund construction of a “Haredi borough,” or ultra-orthodox Jewish enclave.

The Society of Spiritual Development, which was registered as a charity in 2004, has had more modest success. It claimed revenues of $4.4 million in 2011, but has said this was due to a boost in the value of a parcel of land that was expropriated in 2010 to build luxury apartments in the Quebec municipality of Blainville.

In 2012, Lev Tahor was forced to transfer $3.3 million to another Jewish charity after it was unable to build its own residential community — a condition of the donation it received in 2005.

The community has since used some of its money to build an industrial kitchen and launch a kosher food business under the name of Maitiv Corp. in the hopes of raising money. But the business, which is registered in both Quebec and New York State, has not worked out well either. Efforts to produce and sell a kosher confit and compote (fruit dish) failed, as did a recipe for natural cream, said Nachman Helbrans.

The Jewish sect is accused of child neglect, psychological abuse, and living in squalid conditions. A three-month child-welfare investigation in Quebec prompted the group to flee to Chatham-Kent, Ont., last month, just ahead of a Nov. 27 court order that 14 children, aged two months to 16 years, be taken into foster care.

The group had hoped that resettling in Ontario would bring them a measure of peace they were not able to achieve in Quebec. That impression was shattered when two families with the group, representing the 14 children, were summoned to court as Children’s Aid officials in Chatham-Kent attempt to carry out the Quebec judge’s order.

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